Free Shades of War: A Collection of Four Short Stories by Josh Ashton

neatly on each body was a file.
                  "Help me out, Jones. Can you read this stuff?"
                  "Sure. One sec. Let me give some instructions to my guys."
                  While Jones was gone, he pulled open a folder. It seemed to be a dossier on the soldier's life and career. He pulled another and started reading. Jones came back quickly and imitated the Captain.
                  "Is that one a dossier too?"
                  "Yeah, seems like it."
                  Each file seemed to be a dossier on the life of each man, but labeled at the top of the dossier it said the same thing over and over. Gwishin. What the hell? , thought the Captain. Why would someone label all the dead mean as ghosts? Asians had very different views of ghosts, and they had so many different words to describe them. This word meant the spirit of the departed. Next to the bodies were several rows of tall filing cabinets. The Captain picked a drawer, ripped it open and started reading.
                  The firing outside started to increase and men at the windows on the second floor started firing. Over the firing, Jones yelled at the Captain.
                  "I have to go."
                  The Captain didn't stop his reading.
                  "Go. I'll finish this stuff up."
                  With a firefight raging around him, the Captain kept reading. And the more he read the more scared he became. He wasn't scared of the bullets zipping into the building or the explosions slamming against the walls. It was what he read. The Koreans had known something about the effects of EMPs. They somehow knew what would happen to humanity because of those blasts.
                  Humanity was going change. Over and over the Koreans used the same word gwoemul . Gwoemul , "monster" in English. The monsters were coming.
     
    Chapter II
     
    Ford was yelling the same thing over and over.
                  "Cease Fire! Cease Fire!"             
    And at the same time he was waving his hand across his face palm facing outward. It was the signal for cease fire.
                  "Stop wasting ammo, dumb asses!"
                  Ford worked his way around the first floor to all of his men. Amazingly they had repulsed the first attack with no casualties. He was just about to head upstairs, when the Captain came rushing down from upstairs.
                  "Sergeant Ford, we have to talk."
                  "Still busy, sir.”
                  "I know, but this is important."
                  Ford sighed. Leave it an officer to not understand priorities.
                  "OK, just give me five. I have to make sure the upstairs is OK. Wait down here, will you?"
                  "Sure."
                  Ford went upstairs leaving the Captain standing on his own. All around him the guys on the first floor were piling up chairs and tables in the middle of the room. Seeing nothing else to do, the Captain started to help out. Grabbing an end of a table, he helped a soldier create a makeshift wall in the center of the first floor with it.
                  "What are you guys doing?” he asked.
                  "Since this whole first floor is just kind of open, Sergeant Ford thought it would be a good idea to kind of make a barricade over here by the stairwell."
                  The Captain wasn't about to argue with Ford, or the soldier for that matter. When it came to combat, he was out of his element. Because of all the grit and grim covering the soldier he couldn't see a name or rank.
                  "So, what's your name?" he asked, trying to be friendly.
                  "O'Neil, sir. Private O'Neil."
                  "Cool. I'm sure glad you